Archive - September, 2010

Youth Ministry: My Community and NYWC

September 25, 2010 in Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Who I am..., Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Spur-on-ski-trip-web

This is a busy season in my Youth Ministry world. At my church we've got a Junior High Lock-In next weekend and a High School 9-10th grade retreat right after it.   We're also kicking-off promotion for our Winter Ski Retreat with the High School Ministry on Sunday.  I love my job and my team and I think it's a huge blessing to be with them.   This last week has been really cool in the community too. Yesterday I was at the high school for the Pep rally and the football game and had lunch at the elementary school with my kids.  

 

Outside of my church I'm heading to San Diego on Thursday with two of my staff for the National Youth Workers Convention hosted by Youth Specialties.   I'm teaching a couple of seminars as well as working as a consultant to help youth workers navigate their jobs.   More so than all of that though I'm just stoked to get to be with people who think like me and do what I do.  The world of Youth Ministry is an amazing place to be involved in.  I love it and have been doing it for a long time.  These conventions for me are like a recharge where I'm affirmed, trusted and have opportunities to grow closer to the LORD.   

 

Connecting the dots: do you network to “get” or “give”?

September 20, 2010 in Church, Youth Ministry with 2 Comments

One thing that I like to do is to connect people that I think you should know each other and watch to see what happens.  Sort of like grabbing a bunch of live wires and splicing them together to see what becomes of it.  I don't know why God wired me this way but it's something I'm good at.  This last year I've had a ton of fun watching a few things take off from these connections.   

Today I am a part of another event where I'm hoping some of these connections happen.  There are about 75 youth workers in the DFW area meeting at Irving Bible Church for lunch today.  It's being sponsored by Youth Specialties and they are going to talk about the National Youth Workers Convention, Planet Wisdom and a few other new things.

I'm bringing the amazing team of people I work with at Highland Park Pres and looking forward to meeting some new people and reconnecting too. 

So here's my question.  Do you network to "get" something or do you network to "give" something.  I'll be honest first and say part of my networking is to make some friends who do the same things that I do and "get it" but generally I network because I feel like the resources I have should be used by more than just me.  I'm not trying to make a living off of networking, I don't have anything to sell you, I am not trying to make my name big.  

A lot of people don't network at all.  I'm not even surprised anymore by the people who hunker down in their churches here in Dallas and don't get to know anyone.  But, I think that we all need to realize that the reality is that every single kid in our youth group will leave at some point and if we are networked and connected we can introduce these students to people and churches where they might be heading.   

So do you network?  What's a network success story? What's a network failure?  Let's talk about it. 

College Tour and a great weekend of youth ministry

September 17, 2010 in Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

My High School team has headed out this weekend for a retreat with two purposes.  1. They are taking a bunch of students to see Baylor, University of Texas Austin and Texas A & M.  2. To visit students who go to all 3 of those school and let them know that their church loves them and hopes they are doing well.  So stoked for those two purposes. 

I twittered earlier that I'm stoked that I got tickets for the HP high school musical Grease tomorrow night. Right when I go to the box office they released 5 front row seats for tomorrow nights performance. I bought them all and am taking the whole family.  

 

 

 

Run Fat Boy Run!!!!

September 14, 2010 in Who I am... with 0 Comments

Fat-runner If you've read this blog for any amount of time you know that there are a couple things I talk about a lot. I talk about my job as a youth pastor, I talk about traveling, I talk about family and I talk about running.  

Hopefully you know this isn't a picture of me but I'm putting it here to make a point.  I started running because I wasn't happy that I looked more like a lineman than anything else.  People were beginning to ask me "where did you play football?"   I hated telling people that I quit in 9th grade to play in the band.  So yes I have issues.  I've got two friends that have lots a crazy amount of weight in the last year because of running. I started because I thought it could help me get back to my sculpted physique. 

But what I found out was that running for me isn't about getting in shape.  Yes that's still the desired outcome but really what it has become is my outlet for a whole lot of things in my life.  I don't have much of a commute (ok truth I walk about 50 feet from house to office) so when I leave work I don't really have much chance to unwind before getting home. I also really like to take naps, read and get sucked into a lot of stuff that don't require much movement (this blog included) so running is a way of combatting that lifestyle.  

On another note I have a pretty amazing flexible work schedule. I work pretty hard but it's often at weird sort of hours and weekends and so I find out that I often have a chunk of time that I can take to get out and run during the day and not just early in the morning (which I hate) or after dinner (when I'd rather be with my family.)  I guess what I'm saying there is that I don't really have much excuse to not run.  

So I am a runner I think. I'm not fast. I haven't ran any races and I wasn't consistent  last spring when I was  working as a hospital chaplain and at the church.  But this fall I'm back to it obsessing over my miles and my times.   If you happen to see me running somewhere in the Park Cities feel free to pull up your car next to me, smack me in the back and yell "run fat boy run!!!"

 

God’s Judgement or not: Crazy Youth Group Tornados.

September 8, 2010 in Youth Ministry with 1 Comment

The last two Wednesday nights have been pretty interesting at Youth Group.  Last week we were supposed to be playing KickBall Slip and Slide with Junior Highers and having a pool party with 5-6 graders.  Last week we had a huge rainstorm and had to cancel both of those. 

Tonight I was up in the gym with about 100 5-6 graders when are local Tornado warnings signs started going off.  We were on the third floor and needed to get to the basement so we grabbed all the kids and ran to the basement.  So did our 1-4 graders that were at youth group,  the womens ministry dinner and a ton of parents.  The only problem was our basement had flooded this morning because of an amazing rainstorm like I'd never seen in Texas.  

Eventually the sirens stopped and the tornado never touched down but it was a pretty crazy night.

I wonder if God is trying to tell us something.  Perhaps we should stop doing Wednesday night youth group.    

Fortunately I don't think we're doing anything wrong so we have no worry about judgement.  

Steps of Justice: October

September 3, 2010 in Church, Justice, Missions, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Steps-logo-idea-revised

For the month of October we want to see 1000 people doing justice together. We will go through the Steps Of Justice prayer/action guide and become apart of what God is already doing to see justice for all. Each day we will be posting the justice issue for that day. These will come out of the 30 day Prayer/Action guide. We will also be running the Facebook Group so that throughout the day people can comment on what God has done and shown them throughout their day of doing justice.

Tell your friends, your co-workers, fellow students, your mom and everyone else about this so that we can see 1000 of us doing justice together during the month of October.

There will be more details to come as well as updates and posts on the web at http://www.stepsofjustice.org/

We will begin the month on Oct. 4, which is a Monday. Why then you ask? Well because the book is made up of days, starting with Monday, which is an action day. We will be posting things on the web in the next few weeks to bring more clarity to how we will proceed.

Here is the link to the event so that you can sign up, or you can just sign up here and off we go.

Justice Awareness October

 

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